Water wars

Re “We have enough water,” Opinion, Oct. 23

It doesn’t surprise me that Dorothy Green and Jamie Simons suggest taking water away from farmers instead of working cooperatively with others to achieve a reliable water supply for our future. They fail in their argument of using Israel as an example of farmers making do with less water; Israel has to rely heavily on other countries to produce its food. Our farmers are already stretching their water supplies with millions of dollars of investment for efficient irrigation systems. Since 1967, farmers have increased food production by 89% on about the same amount of applied water per acre. This is the same kind of efficiency improvement that urban areas are often praised for. Why not farmers?

Mike Wade

Sacramento

The writer is executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition.

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While I can mostly agree with Green and Simon’s specific recommendations, including the defeat of dueling water bonds, the overall premise of the article is wrong. The delta’s ecosystem needs fixing, a means of delivering water without slaughtering fish is essential, and the effect of global warming cannot be ignored. Further, pouring millions of acre-feet of clean mountain runoff water into the polluted San Francisco Bay is just short of criminal in the face of growing population requirements.

Wayne Clark

Irvine

The writer is vice president of the Municipal Water District of Orange County.